The 2006 Yamaha YZF-R1 LE livery, which was a yellow, black, and white homage to Kenny Roberts Sr., is perhaps the greatest livery ever to adorn an R1, straight from the Yamaha factory. Whether you are a loyal subject of King Kenny, or you just enjoy the fetching, yet simple, racing design, the Roberts livery is a treasure to see in any form — but especially so at speed. Giving us a glimpse as to what the 2015 Yamaha YZF-R1 would look like with such a limited edition paint scheme, Oberdan Bezzi has once again whet our appetite ahead of a weekend full of riding. And for you Giacomo Agostini fans, there is something special waiting for you after the jump as well. Enjoy!

After first showing us the Honda SFA and Honda CRF250 Rally concepts, Big Red made good on its promise for another motorcycle concept premiere at the Osaka Motorcycle Show, debuting the Honda Bulldog concept. With the face of a Ruckus, and built to “leisurely” take-on the great outdoors in an unassuming manor, the Honda Bulldog is a stout off-roader that adds a new slant to the term adventure-bike. With wide 15″ knobby tires, a 28″ seat height, and 400cc parallel-twin engine mated to a six-speed gearbox, the Bulldog certainly isn’t what you expect to see bombing down the trails, yet it sorta makes sense.

If you believe the reports coming out of India and Southeast Asia, Yamaha is working on a naked version of its YZF-R25 sport bike. Presumably to be call the Yamaha MT-25, the naked bike would continue Yamaha’s trend of making naked version of its fully faired sport bikes, similar to the recently released Yamaha MT-125 that is available for the European market. With images of the machine testing on public roads abounding, the MT-25 seems likely to see production, so the real intrigue will be in what markets Yamaha makes the machine available. With Honda already offering faired (Honda CBR300R) and unfaired versions (Honda CB300F) of its small-displacement motorcycle in the US, Yamaha could easily go head-to-head with Big Red with the YZF-R3 and an FZ-03 variant, based off the R3 design.

Need further proof that the future of motorcycling will include electrics? Take this recently published patent application from Kawasaki, that the Japanese OEM filed for back in 2011. The claims are fairly rudimentary, though they do include a transmission, with Kawasaki’s lawyers mostly outlining the basics of a motorcycle powered by an electric motor, of course the news is less about the contents of the patent application, and more about the fact that it was applied for, in the first place. When will we see an electric motorcycle concept from Kawasaki is anyone’s guess, though there are two big motorcycle shows coming up in Japan in a couple weeks’ time. In reality, we doubt we’ll see something so soon from Kawasaki, but if the Kawasaki H2 has shown us anything, it is that anything is possible from Kawasaki right now.

Why would KTM be riding around on a camouflaged Aprilia Tuono V4? That is the question of the day, after a spy photographer caught the Austrian company testing in Spain with such a machine. The answer of course points to KTM working on a V4 street bike platform, which shouldn’t be too surprising since KTM CEO Stefan Pierer already tipped the media off to the fact that it is working on a MotoGP entry that would be based around a beastly V4 engine called the RC16. While Pierer confirmed the MotoGP, as well as a track-only consumer version of the GP bike, zie Austrians have been mum about other motorcycles in KTM’s lineup sharing the new V4 powerplant.

Adventure riders, you prayers have been answered. Honda is set to debut a new off-road model at the Osaka Motorcycle Show, the Honda CRF250 Rally. Based off the Honda CRF250L platform, the Rally concept is basically the CRF250L with rally-styled bodywork. The Honda CRF250 Rally concept will get its worldwide debut alongside the Honda True Adventure concept, which we first saw at last year’s EICMA show. This makes for an interesting dichotomy, as the CRF250 Rally is set to look like the CRF450 Rally race bike, while the True Adventure (cough, Africa Twin, cough) borrows heavily from the race bike’s technology package. With Honda showing a 250cc ADV model and a 1,000cc model at the same show, one has to wonder when a consumer-level version of the CRF450 Rally race bike will be ready as well.

After it first debuted in Indonesia last October, the Honda SFA concept motorcycle seems to be getting serious, as Honda will be showing the up-market bike at this weekend’s Osaka Motorcycle Show and next weekend’s Tokyo Motorcycle Show. While Honda only mentions that the SFA concept is a “street-fighter style light-weight motorcycle with a single cylinder engine mounted on a trellis frame,” sources in Indonesia say the fetching small-displacement machine is built around the 150cc CB150R for that market. Whether this means that Honda will make more premium-focused 150cc machines, and bring them to markets outside of Asia remains to be seen, though it is clear that the Japanese firm is taking such an approach under serious consideration.

Italy’s favorite boutique brand will be back at the Isle of Man TT races this year, with a two rider team that includes American Brandon Cretu. Cretu and his teammate Ben Wylie will campaign for Bimota at the big four road races (North West 200, Isle of Man TT, Ulster Grand Prix, and Macau GP) on-board the Bimota BB3 superbike. This is not the first time that Cretu and Wylie have raced together, having shared a pit while at the Wylie Racing team during the 2011 and 2012 Isle of Man TT races. Though the Bimota BB3 was ruled ineligible for FIM events, the international road racing scene has no hang-ups letting the S1000RR-powered superbikes lineup on the starting grid.

We are still waiting for the 2015 MV Agusta F4 RC to break cover officially, but the top-of-the-line superbike from Varese continues to make itself sneakily available to the public. First there were the leaked studio photos, which looked spot-on to the photos MV Agusta USA teased us with at its press launch earlier this year. Now, we have more photos of the F4 RC leaking, though with some changes to the design — namely more prominent “AMG” badging, for MV Agusta’s newest minority partner. The 2015 MV Agusta F4 RC isn’t supposed to arrive at dealerships until June 2015; and when it does, it will be in limited numbers. The F4 RC is MV Agusta’s homologation special for World Superbike and domestic superbike racing classes.

Aprilia Racing boss Romano Albesiano has big shoes to fill. Taking over from Gigi Dall’Igna, Albesiano must continue the legacy of success which his predecessor left for him. He got off to a good start, Sylvain Guintoli lifting the World Superbike title in Albesiano’s first year at the helm. Now comes the hard part, following up on that success and expanding into MotoGP. A small group of journalists spoke to Albesiano at the Aprilia launch in Milan. In a wide-ranging conversation, the Aprilia boss covered many topics, including explaining why the Noale firm came back to MotoGP a year ahead of schedule, touching on what the new bike Aprilia is working on for 2016 and beyond might look like, and the 2016 rules in MotoGP.

Though the addition of BMW’s water-cooled engine to the 2015 BMW R1200R was a move everyone saw coming down the pipe, the German company’s extensive style shift on the BMW R1200R was perhaps a move unexpected.

The classic looking roadster of before is now replaced with a more aggressive design — though perhaps not as aggressive as the BMW Roadster Concept that we saw earlier this year.

Still, the new BMW R1200R is a handsome machine that incorporates both mild-touring capability with a fun sporty ride. Since we had a tough time pulling images off BMW’s press site earlier this week, because of all the traffic from INTERMOT, here’s a “mega gallery” of 181 high-resolution images. Enjoy!

We had 12 kinds of trouble with BMW’s press site during INTERMOT, as such our stories on their new bikes were woefully under-stocked with images. To make that up to you, we’re going to bring you some “mega galleries” of high-resolution photos of the Bavarian machines. First up, the 2015 BMW S1000RR.

New for 2015 is a revised the frame geometry for better handling, an engine that has been massaged for an additional 6hp (peak power is now 199hp, while torque is at 83 lbs•ft), and a bulk weight that has been reduced by 9 lbs (449.7 lbs with a full tank of fuel and ABS).

BMW says it gained the extra power by revising the cylinder head on the 998cc inline-four engine. A larger airbox, along with shorter intake lengths also help boost the peak horsepower on the 2015 BMW S1000RR.

To get the S1000RR on a diet, BMW has dropped the front silencer on the exhaust, for a healthy weight reduction of 6.6 lbs. The frame on the 2015 BMW S1000RR is lighter as well, and boasts refined positions for the steering head angle, wheel castor, wheelbase, and swingarm pivot. There is even a new battery, which shaves another 2 lbs off the 2015 BMW S1000RR.

Cruise control (yup) and semi-active suspension (BMW’s Dynamic Damping Control), has also been added to the updated superbike. Blah, blah, blah…you’re here for the photos, huh? We have 169 hi-res beauties for you after the jump. Enjoy!

To wrap-up our INTERMOT coverage today, we bring you the Yamaha 01GEN three-wheeler concept. The Yamaha 01GEN is similar to the Yamaha Tesseract Concept, except that the Japanese brand envisions this motorcycle living both on and off-road.

With one wheel in the rear, and two in the front, the Yamaha 01Gen Concept is perhaps the most interesting trike we have ever seen. The front wheels certainly look like they have enough suspension travel to soak up some big hits, while the belt-driven single-tire in the rear sounds easy enough to maintain in off-road conditions.

The Yamaha 01Gen should be fun on-road as well, as the concept should be able to lean through turns, thus adding the sensation of a motorcycle, with a little bit more stability on the front-end.

Yamaha’s press release on the 01GEN is filled with hyperbole and pipe dreams, but we think there could be something here with the design. Maybe it’s not for everyone, but clearly the Japanese OEM is thinking outside the box on what to delivery powersport enthusiasts.

When it comes to the four Japanese manufacturers at INTERMOT, Suzuki is looking more and more like it slept in late on test day. Both Honda and Yamaha have been pushing the ball forward, releasing some interesting, albeit not inspiring, motorcycles to the market. Those bikes were fresh at least, and showed some life going on in the motorcycle departments of those companies.

To its credit, the 2015 Suzuki V-Strom 650XT is a welcomed addition to Suzuki’s lineup, however other models like the Suzuki GSX-S1000 and Suzuki GSX-S1000F, makes us think that Suzuki is afraid to build anything truly new and inspiring again. Need further proof? Take the 2015 Suzuki GSX-R1000.

The good times don’t stop rolling with the new Kawasaki Versys 650, as the 2015 Kawasaki Versys 1000 is confirmed to be coming to the United States as well. We already got a glimpse of the new Kawasaki Versys 1000 from yesterday’s leaked photos, which showed the revised bodywork from Kawasaki.

Getting official details now, we know that the 2015 Kawasaki Versys 1000 makes relatively minor improvements technically over the previous model. Longer travel suspension has been added, and the 17″ wheels have been beefed up, both in order to aid going on off-road excursions.

If you liked what you saw yesterday, when we posted leaked photos of the 2015 Kawasaki Versys 650, then you will like even more what we have to say now, as Kawasaki USA has confirmed that the all-new Kawasaki Versys 650 is coming to the United States as a 2015 model year bike. The official announcement is set for the AIMExpo in October, so there is no pricing yet for the US market.

As we saw in the leaked photos, the 2015 Kawasaki Versys 650 has a revised headlight design, and new fairings that improve wind deflection around the rider. The 649cc parallel-twin engine has also been reworked, producing more horsepower and getting better fuel economy in the process.

We caught a glimpse of the 2015 Suzuki GSX-S1000F yesterday, as it sat on the expo floor at INTERMOT, and we were curious about the machine. Thankfully we didn’t have to wait long for the details.

Essentially a fully-faired version of the Suzuki GSX-S1000, the Suzuki GSX-S1000F fills the void in Suzuki’s lineup for a 1,000cc sport-tourer that is actually sporty — think of it as a response to the Honda VFR800.

The GSX-S1000F uses the same purpose-built chassis and retuned 2008 Suzuki GSX-R1000 engine that the GSX-S1000 uses, though Suzuki obviously wrapped that package in a full-fairing design.

Also carried over is the three-way adjustable traction control system as standard, KYB suspension, and Brembo monoblock brakes. Anti-locking brakes are available as an optional item.

The 2015 Ducati Scrambler has officially debuted at the INTERMOT show in Cologne, Germany today, in case you missed the news. Before today though, Ducati North America invited us out to get a sneak peak of the new Scrambler Icon, along with a little time in a photo studio.

As a result, we have a bevy of our “up-close” photos for you, as well as some first impressions of the machine.

Perhaps the most striking feature of the Ducati Scrambler is how bare bones the motorcycle is. Ducati did a good job of not over-thinking the Scrambler, leaving the model true to its name.

The dash is a tastefully small round unit, which sits nestled between the high and wide handlebars. This gives the rider a good open feeling from the seat, though the exposed wires and cables are a bit distracting, with nothing else to hide them.

Artfully exposed is the air-cooled v-twin DesmoDue engine, which is borrowed from the Monster 796, and thus is a confusing 803cc. The header shape should look familiar as well, as it mimics those found on the Ducati Diavel.

The seat seems practical for two-up riding, and the Scrambler Icon is fitted with passenger pegs. The cheapest ($8,595 for the yellow one) of Ducati’s four Scrambler variants, the Icon is perhaps the most vanilla model. That’s not a bad thing, but the other three models are clearly present to appeal to certain niche riders.